The rather awkwardly
named Catacoustic Consort is an American
ensemble consisting of three instrumentalists
and a singer. They specialise in Renaissance
vocal and instrumental music. Formed
in 2001 they are a relatively young
group and won the Naxos/Early Music
America recording competition in 2003.
Their debut recording with Naxos is
a programme of 17th Italian
dramatic laments.

At the head of the
programme, naturally, is the sole remaining
fragment from Monteverdi’s opera ‘L’Arianna’,
the Lamento d’Arianna. The opera
was enormously popular in its time but
the manuscript has been lost and we
have just this lament. Here it receives
a fine dramatic reading from soprano
Catherine Webster. Her diction is admirable
and her soprano has a fine, focused
silvery tone. Perhaps she does not yet
have quite a feel for the words comparable
with Emma Kirkby’s, but this is an impressive
debut.

The group follow this
with a short piece by Jacopo Peri, who
probably wrote the music for the first
real opera La Dafne. His setting
of Al fonte al prato (To the
spring, to the meadow) is a lively,
dancing piece which receives a charming
performance from the ensemble.

They follow this with
a pair of instrumental pieces by the
great theorbo player Giovanni Girolamo
Kapsberger; first a slowish set of variations
over a ground bass and then a more lively
dance, over a ground bass again.

Peri’s Lungi dal
vostro lume (Far from your light),
given in a wonderfully long-breathed
performance, is followed by a Vedro’l
mio sol by another operatic pioneer
Giulio Caccini. Caccini wrote another
early opera, L’Euridice; probably
the earliest complete opera to survive.

Peri’s Se tu parti
da me (If you leave me) is a setting
of a sonnet by Michelangelo Buonarotti.
This is a substantial piece, but like
many of the laments on this disc by
Monteverdi’s contemporaries, Peri fails
to reach the depths of intensity that
Monteverdi does. It helps therefore
that the Catacoustic Consort are such
a finely balanced group with a good
sense of ensemble playing. Their notes
make much of the idea that they improvise
their performances. Whilst I did not
feel these performances sound improvised,
they do have a spontaneity and charm
which is entirely appealing. Monteverdi
himself reappears with the lovely Si
dolce e il tormento (So sweet is
the torment).

Though the consort
varies the instrumentation somewhat,
they make a particularly distinctive
sound due to the timbre of the lira
viol which artistic director Annalisa
Pappano often plays. The resulting sound
has an appealingly sombre quality. The
magic of these performances is the chamber
music interplay between the performers
rather than any gaudy Technicolor instrumentation.

A further instrumental
item follows; a Kapsberger’s Passacaglia
is a long, wonderfully contemplative
piece.

Then the other well
known piece on the disc, Caccini’s Amarilli;
known in a variety of incarnations,
the consort give it a charming, unhackneyed
performance with Webster gradually increasing
the intensity of vocal decoration as
the piece progresses. This is followed
by a further instrumental piece by a
name new to me: Richardo Rogniono.

Peri’s Uccidimi
dolore (Slay me, grief) is another
substantial lament; a dramatic recitative
which receive a big dramatic performance
from Caroline Webster. Finally the group
conclude with the charming Amor ch’attendi
(Love what are you waiting for)
by Caccini.

If you want the song
texts and translations for this release
then you must visit Naxos’s web site;
understandable perhaps given the budget
nature of this release. The CD liner
notes include an article introducing
the genre and the composers, but they
fail to provide detailed background
information on the individual items,
which is a lost opportunity I think.
If I have a complaint about the recital
programme, it is that they could perhaps
have explored some further by-ways of
the vocal repertoire and reduced the
number of instrumental items. But many
will enjoy the disc’s mix of vocal and
instrumental.

This is repertoire
which has been traversed many times
by a number of groups, starting with
Antony Rooley and the Consort of Musicke.
Perhaps the Catacoustic Consort does
not have the sheer perfection that Rooley
and Emma Kirkby bring to this repertoire.
What the Catacoustic Consort does display
is a fine sense of spontaneity and they
convey a fine sense of four artists
playing chamber music in a responsive
manner. I hope to hear more of them.

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